Very few people can keep up with Tadej Pogačar. And even fewer can train with him. “Not many people want to ride with me, or I don’t want to ride with them,” the world champion recently said.

The one man who is allowed on the inside though is Michael Matthews, the Australian who won the Tour de France green jersey in 2017. “Bling appreciates how I train, and I like how he trains. That’s why we often go together,” Pogačar, 26, told the MyWhoosh podcast recently.

When Pogačar moved to Monaco in 2020, the year he won his first of three and counting Tours de France, the duo started training with each other. Four years later they remain regular training partners and friends, despite Matthews riding for Jayco-AluLa and Pogačar for UAE Team Emirates.

“We met up for a ride after one of the races we did together and we just clicked together,” Matthews, 34, told Velo of the start of their friendship. “Sometimes you meet people like that who you just click with straight away.

“We share a passion for riding bikes and having fun, enjoying the whole process of training. We attack and race against each other [in training]. I guess we’re like big kids in that we love what we do. We’re so happy to do what we do on a daily basis, and both train the same and have the same interests.”

This article was published on Velo in December 2024. You can read the full article here.